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Photographs by Thomas Crone
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A few weeks back, we noted the extensive preparation taken by the Mystic Knights of the Purple Haze to win the best float category of the Soulard Mardi Gras; that kind of inspired work’s pretty much applied each and every year, which explains their infamy as near-annual winners of the Grand Parade’s top float. As it turned out, that piece previewed another victory, as the MKPH salute to Aquaman, or, more specifically, their redubbed “Aquamon,” took the top prize again in 2013.
Last night, the Mystic Knights and about a dozen other krewes got a chance to celebrate one more time with the annual Fat Tuesday Parade. Having missed the main round of partying on Saturday, I found my way down to the edge of the Edward Jones Dome last night, where the floats were assembled along the eastern edge of the stadium, waiting for their 7 p.m. roll-time. The Knights were kind enough to let me join them as an embedded reporter, but only after mastering several complicated handshakes and producing the head of a recently slain goat.
Not true, that latter stuff. I was just told to stay out from under the wheels of the float, and the classic truck that hauled it down the block. As instructions and orientations go, it was pretty mellow.
Mind you, I was a bit keyed-up for the event. My last visit to the Fat Tuesday Parade came in 1999, the same year that a riot broke loose between agitated celebrants and an overly testy SLMPD police force. Still mad that I took off as the night’s energy level started to get weird and edgy, I took a good dozen-plus years off, never seeing the new, shorter, Downtown route down Washington Avenue, which was covered in a bit less than half-an-hour last night.
The Mystic Knights were found towards the end of the Parade, not because of the float’s quality; this is more of a first-come, first-slotted type of affair. By the time the float rolled in just after 6:30 p.m., the order was already largely set. The Knights’ members took time to outfit themselves for the next 30 minutes, with the krewe dressing along two main themes: they were either underwater creatures, or they were Aquaman’s fellow members in the Justice League of America. A fun enough mix.
Not content to let the float ride down the block with bits ’n’ bobs falling off, several members took time to glue, staple and drill pieces back together during the final prep, while fluffing out the eight legs of the float’s star attraction, a huge octopus riding atop the whole shebang. As promised, the float wasn’t just built for this past Saturday’s Grand Parade; the lights throughout the float were clearly meant for nighttime play and the crowd along Washington Avenue last night was treated to the whole, finished, illuminated product.
On foot with the majority of the Knights—who mostly eschew riding the float, in order to walk and engage the crowd instead—the audience’s energy was palpable, even if it was just a fraction of the mass that was on-hand in Soulard on Saturday. As one might expect, the Fat Tuesday Parade’s route allows the crowd to get a bit thicker and more boisterous as things rolled westward. At Broadway, where the floats turned onto Washington, spectators strung along the fencing, with goodly space between everyone. Within a block or two, the elbow room between onlookers shrunk and just after the Convention Center, people stood a couple bodies deep. The last two blocks, between Tucker and the parade-ending 14th Street, also had a nice, enthusiastic audience, with no shortage of both kids and adults shouting for beads.
If you don’t often get the chance to see people yelling in your general direction, that kind of energy’s a pretty powerful thing. Even though I wasn’t part of the krewe, I was mixed in and the outstretched hands and shouts and Hendrix tunes cranking from the truck all created a buzz that lasted longer than the 30 minutes it took to travel Washington. To feel that a couple times every Mardi Gras week is probably the main reason—along with a general sense of camaraderie—that people invest the time and money to march each year. It’s a buzz, no doubt.
It was fun to hop onto the Knights’ bandwagon this year. Can’t say it any simpler. Taking in the Fat Tuesday Parade from the inside out is straight up, good, clean fun.
